Jordan River - Winter Pinup

Jordan River was the next model in my Winter Pinup series. I have worked with Jordan several times in the past, but during the pandemic, she decided to take a hiatus from modeling. The last time we shot was in the summer of 2019, so five years later I noticed she was modeling again, and asked her to be part of this series. 

I've always enjoyed working with Jordan. We have done several studio shoots, a boudoir shoot, and three outdoor shoots. She works well in all environments, and I am hoping to work with her more in the coming year. 

She arrived at the studio ready to work and we quickly got to it.

We quickly worked through most of the outfits and then when we were almost done, I managed to pop the breaker for the studio and killed the lights. Since we were pretty much done for the day, I had Jordan get dressed and with the breaker reset, I changed the setting for the shoot for a Christmas pinup I planned to shoot with Nancy the next day.

Despite the breaker issue, which was entirely my fault, we had a fun shoot with some excellent shots to share.

Winter Pinups with Floofie and Jade

I've occupied my mind recently with the planning and executing a series of shoots. Normally, I shoot Christmas pinups this time of year, but I wanted to switch it up this year. 

Usually, I shoot the pinups in my home in front of the tree and decorations my wife designs.

Every year it's something different. One year the tree got decked out in blue and the windows were frosted with a glaze. Another year, a snowflake and snowman theme made its debut. She picks a unique theme almost every Christmas. This year, however, we adopted an energetic and curious kitten, so we decided to forgo a tree. So, I had to change gears.

I decided on a Winter pinup scene and went about gathering the material and costumes to turn Floofie's studio into a winter haven. With a backdrop, lighting from large softboxes, and a fake snow floor, it came together rather nicely. 

Floofie agreed to be my first model for this series. She and I have worked together so often, she can almost read my mind when it comes to posing and I know exactly what to expect when I shoot with her.

As always, she delivered, and by having her model the different outfits, I got a feel for how they looked in the light and with the background.  

After Floofie and I wrapped up our shoot, it was time for Jade. This was only my fifth shoot with Jade, but she has made amazing progress as a model in the year that we've been working together.

As I expected, Jade did a wonderful job modeling the scene as well. I had hoped to do Christmas pinups with Jade last year, but life intervened and we never got to shoot. When she started modeling again, I. told her we'd do a pinup theme this year, so she had to be first after Floofie. She really flexed her pinup muscles for me and we got some great shots.

Floofie kindly let me leave the scene set up overnight for the next model, Jordan, scheduled for the following morning. That made it much easier to get started the next morning. 

Winter Weather Blues

We've been snowed in for the past week. We live on a hill and with the exception of Friday, the snow and ice have been bad enough that we didn't want to risk driving in it. We did manage to get out yesterday and over to the other side of Portland to pick up one daughter whoe was somewhat stranded there and to visit with two of our grandchildren and our other daughter. Also, our son, daughter-in-law and newest granddaughter flew in and met us there before heading to the coast to visit with the in-laws. For a brief period of about 20 minutes, we had all three of our grandchildren in the same room. It was delightful.

Unfortunately, we had to forgo dinner plans with some very good friends of ours whom we haven't seen in several weeks, but we're going to make every effort to see them in the next couple of weeks. We didn't get home until later in the evening, and slept in this morning. By the time we got up for the day, it was already snowing again and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground here at the valley floor. Three inches isn't much really, especially since we lived in New England for several years before we moved to Oregon, but the snow removal capabilities of the county and cities in the area don't compare at all to those of the Northeast so the roads are quite treacherous. I did buy chains for the truck, but unless I have a real need to leave the house, I just can't see driving in this mess.

We had hoped it would warm up and all this would be gone by Christmas so we could have all our grandchildren and children here on Christmas Day, but it's looking iffy right now according to the latest weather forecast (which haven't been terribly accurate). We're keeping our fingers crossed, though.

One advantage of this nasty weather has been that it's given me some extra time to work on post-processing the images I've taken this past year. I usually shoot quite a lot during the warm months then work on the images over the winter months - and not being able to get out of the house has given me some extra incentive to work on the images. The two sets I've worked on most recently have been the River Fairy and the Sand Fairy. If the weather keeps up like it has been, I'm sure I'll get on to the Water Fall Fairy and the Spring Fairy as well.
Here's the Sand Fairy:


With any luck, I'll be able to shoot the Winter Fairy too. Wish me luck.

Back to Work

I made it back to the office today. It was actually nice to be sitting at my desk, fielding phone calls, running meetings, and preparing for the intellectual challenges of the new business year. Today wasn’t terribly busy. My department usually ramps up slowly after the Christmas holidays, simply due to the nature of our business (training). So I had plenty of time to collect my thoughts and ponder the changes I want to make in my programs in the near future.

I also thought about changes I wanted to make in my personal life as well. I didn’t make any formal resolutions, but there are things I would like to do differently this year, such as:

1. Get out more during the winter. Normally when the days are short and it’s wet and windy outside, we hibernate. By that I mean, once we get home from work, we turn on the tv and basically vegetate for the rest of the evening. I just hate that. So, I want to get out more. We can still go out for coffee, or to the bookstore, or to the gym. There’s no need to just come inside and hide.
2. I want to take more, better and varied photographs this year. I want to do more that just go to the fairs and festivals. We do have a trip to Hawaii planned, and I’m sure I’ll get lots of photos then, but more importantly, I want to be a more frequent photographer. I want to get out twice or thrice a week with camera in hand to photograph scenery, people, places, and nature. I need to expand my skills and challenge myself with new assignments.
3. I want to complete at least two photo expeditions this year (not including Hawaii). One of those will be to return to Crater Lake National Park and to travel around the rim photographing the sites from several angles. I’m not sure what the other expedition will be, but I’m thinking it will be to photograph at least 6 new waterfalls somewhere in the state (not any of the falls in the Columbia River Gorge or in Silver Falls State park).
4. I want to complete at least two significant hikes - Dog Mountain and Eagle Creek come to mind, but Saddle Mountain in the Coastal Range would be nice too.
5. I want to photograph in the following areas this year: The Columbia River Gorge, Silver Falls State Park, Ecola Point, Cannon Beach, Seaside, Astoria, Brandon Beach, Munsie Falls, and the Mt Hood Wilderness area.

So, I think my expectations are reasonable. Maybe at the end of the year I’ll post a review to see how well I did against the list.